Happy Birthday, Ben!

Today is Ben's 29th birthday, and as you can see from the picture above, Harry spent a good part of his afternoon yesterday crafting a masterpiece of a birthday gift. I had intended to turn him loose in J Crew and let him pick out some "hots" (socks) for Daddy, but I was too tired to leave the house after his nap yesterday, so art projects had to suffice. And Ben liked the art better anyway, mainly because he didn't get the bill for it later.

You can't totally see it in this picture, but Harry is clutching his new obsession-- a monkey-shaped straw cup that his grandma got him. It dribbles a little when tipped, so he can only use it at the table, but this means that whenever he is sitting at or near a table, he demands "Monkey. Wawa. Ass. Harry's. Yep. Thank You" (ass means ice). If he only had a verb. Actually, he grabbed my face with both his hands this morning and screamed "Move!" so I guess he does have a verb. (And also? How rude is that-- we were laying on MY pillow, for goodness sake).

Art wasn't necessarily the more relaxing gift choice, however, as we started off with finger paints (Which is why Harry has no shirt on. Thanks, Sarah, for the no shirt inspiration), and finger paints make Harry very anxious. Mommy, too. He doesn't really like the way they feel on his fat little fingers, and I am afraid that they are not as washable as the package claims. He did end up making a painting for Ben, though, because he would not let me tear the "markie" drawings out of his sketchbook. They were, you see, "Harry's" which-- besides "mine"-- is all the kid says these days.

He was so messy after his creations that I thought I'd give him a quick bath and let him play with the bathtub crayons my dad sent. This would have been a great idea, but he pooped in the tub. Then, when he was sitting happily on a towel playing while I cleaned the tub, I noticed that he was having fun with his brown crayon. Only it wasn't a crayon. Then when I was getting him dressed, he peed in his art box. Awesome. So, yeah, we should have gone to the mall.

Ben and I started telling Harry about how, after his baby brother comes, he'll get to share all of his stuff with his little brother, and Harry laughed and laughed, like this was the funniest thing he had ever heard-- funnier even than sneezes, which blow his mind with their hilarity. Sharing doesn't go well with the "Harry's" phase he's entered into, so we took the advice of a sibling book we snagged at the library and bought a bunch of little gifts to have on hand for Harry, just in case the baby gets gifts.

He was so upset this morning to discover that the big present in the cool fun bag was for Ben. He kept saying, "Ho ho ho Harry's." We tried to tell him that he'll get to play Wii, too, but he's not a delayed gratification kind of guy (and actually it was an XBox 360, which I bought because Wii was totally sold out-- I figured Ben could either keep it OR we could go stand in line at Target on Sunday and wait for a Wii shipment and exchange the XBOX. Luckily for Ben, he found a store that got a shipment TODAY, so he is actually the proud owner of a Wii. And, like me, he's almost 30-- ha!) .

I think the technical term for what I have been doing lately is "nesting," a concept I used to think was ridiculous and sexist, but now think may be accurate, since I have been seized by a desire to buy baby things (blankets mainly and Zutano clothes) since the moment I finished my dissertation. Stay tuned for pictures of THAT craziness. And also of the dissertation, which is 233 pages and still needs a better conclusion but probably won't get one right now because I am facing a stack of undergraduate papers that makes my 233-pager look slim.

Not looking slim? That'd be me. It may be the meal I have added between breakfast and lunch. It might be the fact that Coke is still the only thing that cures my heartburn. Maybe it's the bedtime ice cream cone, or the daily column of Oreos. There is definitely more of me to love, that's for sure.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Ben! I love you, and I can't wait for our date night to celebrate-- in the meantime, aren't you the luckiest guy ever to have your B-Day on a "Lost" night?!